Invasion and high-elevation acclimation of the red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, in the southern Blue Ridge Escarpment region of North America
| Autor: | Robert J. Warren, A. J. Lytle, J. T. Costa |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
South Carolina Acclimatization Social Sciences Invasive Species Introduced species Woodland Escarpment 01 natural sciences Biochemistry Invasive species Geographical locations Red imported fire ant Sociology Macromolecular Structure Analysis Psychology Multidisciplinary geography.geographical_feature_category Lipid Analysis Latitude biology Animal Behavior Geography Ecology Temperature Eukaryota Lipids Insects Animal Sociality Social Systems Medicine Research Article Cartography Thermotolerance Arthropoda Science 010603 evolutionary biology Species Colonization Animals Molecular Biology geography Behavior Ants Ecology and Environmental Sciences fungi Organisms Biology and Life Sciences biology.organism_classification Invertebrates Hymenoptera United States 010602 entomology North America Earth Sciences Biological dispersal People and places Introduced Species Zoology |
| Zdroj: | PLoS ONE, Vol 15, Iss 5, p e0232264 (2020) PLoS ONE |
| ISSN: | 1932-6203 |
| Popis: | The red imported fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) is a non-native invasive species that rapidly spread northward in the United States after its introduction from South America in the 1930s. Researchers predicted that the northward spread of this invasive ant would be limited by cold temperatures with increased latitude and greater elevation in the Blue Ridge Escarpment region of the United States. The presence of S. invicta at relatively high elevations north of their projected limits suggests greater cold tolerance than previously predicted; however, these populations might be ephemeral indications of strong dispersal abilities. In this study, we investigated potential physiological adaptations of S. invicta that would indicate acclimation to high elevation environments. We hypothesized that if S. invicta colonies can persist in colder climates than where they originated, we would find gradients in S. invicta worker cold tolerance along a montane elevational gradient. We also predicted that higher elevation S. invicta ants might incur greater physiological costs to persist in the colder climate, so we measured colony lipid content to assess health status. For comparison, we also collected physiological temperature tolerance data for the co-occurring dominant native woodland ant Aphaenogaster picea. We found that S. invicta occurring at higher elevations exhibited greater physiological tolerance for cold temperatures as compared to lower-elevation conspecifics-a cold tolerance pattern that paralleled of the native A. picea ants along the same gradient. Both S. invicta and A. picea similarly exhibited lower thermal tolerances for colder temperatures when moving up the elevational gradient, with A. picea consistently exhibiting a lower thermal tolerance overall. There was no change in S. invicta colony lipid content with elevation, suggesting that greater metabolic rates were not needed to sustain these ants at high elevations. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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